Payment banks to offer hundreds of jobs with salaries as high as Rs 1.50 crore

The entities are also scouting for talent outside the country.., said K Sudarshan, managing partner and co-founder, EMA Partners.

November 6, 2015 13:42 IST

Payment banks, which got in-principle nod from the central bank, are expected to offer over 1,500 jobs with pay packages as high as Rs 1.50 crore when they launch their operations in the next 18 months, according to executive search firms.

These entities can accept cash deposits, permit remittances and roll out "simple financial products". They can accept savings deposits of up to Rs 1 lakh from a customer. However, a payments bank is not allowed to lend to customers, like commercial banks.

The payment banks will hire nearly 150 senior executives, 370 mid-level executives and over 1,000 junior-level staff in the coming months, The Economic Times reported, citing estimates made by Vito India, a headhunting firm.

So far, some of these entities -- Cholamandalam, Department of Posts, National Securities Depository, Tech Mahindra and Dilip Shanghvi of Sun Pharma -- haven't hired the chief executives for their payment banks.

The areas for which the payment banks recruit people include product, sales and distribution, merchant acquisition, strategic alliances, operations, and regulatory and compliance and they are expected to offer salaries between Rs 50 lakh and Rs 75 lakh for senior executives handling these functions.

"Salary for CXOs (CEOs and other management-level executives) is in the range of Rs 1-1.5 crore while for a level below it is around Rs 70 lakh to Rs 1 crore," said Kalyani Shastry, associate director at RGF Executive Search.

However, the Birla group, which also got permission to start a payment bank, has already hired employees for its operations.

"We have our people in place ... we look for banking, consumer and technology-oriented people," said Santrupt Misra, director of global HR & CEO, carbon black business, at the group.

The entities are also scouting for talent outside the country, including Singapore and Silicon Valley, to rope in people with experience in disruptive products, said K Sudarshan, managing partner and co-founder of EMA Partners.